Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

[mattpd]

A customer brought in a laptop with an interesting problem. She complained it would not boot. I tried to boot it and it came up with a STOP screen and said something about "OS mismatch". I hooked the hard drive up to another computer and EVERY SINGLE FOLDER IS EMPTY. All of the folders are still intact, but their contents does not exist. The only files that I actually see are a few log files that are on the ROOT. Other than that there are NO files. The hard drive properties only report 2GB being used when I know there should be more.

The files are not hidden. I have the computer set to show hidden files and I also un-hid all the files on the computer. Any sugestions?

[Pentium4]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Maybe because you don't have permission to view their files?

[mattpd]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Doubt it as it lets me drill down into the folders. If I didn't have permission, the folders would not open. I do this on a daily basis with customers computers and have never seen this problem. I'm afraid that maybe the file system is damaged. So far all of the recovery programs I have run are seeing the same empty folders.

[Pentium4]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

It was just a suggestion Getdataback for NTFS has been a great program for me for recovering files from issues like that. I highly recommend it

[mattpd]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Any suggestions are welcome, I was just saying that its not a common problem to the best of my knowledge Would that be GetDataBack for NTFS you speak of? I love it too, unfortunately it does see any files either.

[selldoor]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

She complained it would not boot.

Perhaps its what she didnt tell you that is the problem? make a few enquiries
had she or anyone tried to fix it. Picked up a file wiping virus.

[smason]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Check to make sure you have enabled show hidden files.
There's a ton of malware out there that changes all your files to hidden.

[lti]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

I had a strange hard drive failure where the only thing Windows could see was a single empty folder. However, that drive still reported the same amount of space being used that it reported before the failure.

In your case, I think something removed all of those files since the amount of space being used is so low. The hard drive could be bad as well because a few log files and a bunch of empty folders would not take up 2GB.

[Kiriakos GR]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

An laptop ... what brand ?
OS ... what OS ?
Are those files encrypted ? by what software they was protected ?
Is it XP Pro ? Use the recovery console !!

Make the right questions so to get a proper answer.

[eppidrummer]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Believe it or not its a virus. Seen this exact thing many times before with windows 7. There is a program called "unhide" that will fix your problem. I sent you a link.
-Eppidrummer

[mattpd]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Believe it or not its a virus. Seen this exact thing many times before with windows 7. There is a program called "unhide" that will fix your problem. I sent you a link.
-Eppidrummer

It may be a virus, but its not the common one that hides files. The files are not hidden, they are literally gone.

[Time2Retire]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

I say hook the HD to a Linux PC and see what's on it. A Windows virus or trojan can't do shit in Linux. If nothing else, you may be able to recover some personal files.

[kc8adu]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

look in temp and make sure you can view hidden.there is a hostageware going around the hides stuff in temp and sets them hidden.but iirc its just the users folder.it usually contains the stuff folks care about.

[delaware74b]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Time2Retire has the right idea. I have had 3 computers with the same bug on them in the past month. No files visible in Windows, unable to get to customers' documents connecting the drive to a windows PC through USB adapter.

I have my netbook dual-booting with Ubuntu. Simple fix: boot into Ubuntu, connect customer's hard drive via USB, copy and paste to an external hard drive for reload. Burn copy and give it to customer. Dump customer's hard drive and reload Windows and customer's data.

BTW, this bug blows the mbr and boot managers, causing a new inaccessible 10GB empty partition that Windows cannot see or access. Installed programs on the affected drive start disappearing until Windows won't lead.

My latest on was the FBI/ransom trojan. Couldn't kill it with Malwarebytes or Spybot. Wiping the drive was the only option.......

[retiredcaps]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

My latest on was the FBI/ransom trojan. Couldn't kill it with Malwarebytes or Spybot. Wiping the drive was the only option.......

Wow, usually Malwarebytes is really good at removing that stuff.

[mattpd]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Time2Retire has the right idea. I have had 3 computers with the same bug on them in the past month. No files visible in Windows, unable to get to customers' documents connecting the drive to a windows PC through USB adapter.

I have my netbook dual-booting with Ubuntu. Simple fix: boot into Ubuntu, connect customer's hard drive via USB, copy and paste to an external hard drive for reload. Burn copy and give it to customer. Dump customer's hard drive and reload Windows and customer's data.

BTW, this bug blows the mbr and boot managers, causing a new inaccessible 10GB empty partition that Windows cannot see or access. Installed programs on the affected drive start disappearing until Windows won't lead.

My latest on was the FBI/ransom trojan. Couldn't kill it with Malwarebytes or Spybot. Wiping the drive was the only option.......

Thanks, I will give Ubuntu live cd a try. Is this caused by a virus or something else? It's especially nasty whatever it is.

That is strange that malware didn't get the FBI/random virus. I have seen about 10 of these and usually just a quick scan will remove it. I guess they got smarter.

[mattpd]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Just tried in Ubuntu. Files are non existent. Luckily I will be able to restore her computer from a backup so it's not a big deal, but what the heck caused this?

[delaware74b]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

The bug kept reloading itself in the registry after removing the threats while in safe mode. I ran a full system scan, remove the bug, reboot into safe mode and comes up clean. I then reboot into regular mode, run a full system scan with Malwarebytes and the bug is back.....

After the third time and 2 hours, I chose to to a drive wipe and reinstall the OS.

[smason]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Yeah, life's too short. At work if we can't kill it manually in 15 minutes (which I usually can), we grab any personal data, then wipe and reload.

[mattpd]

Re: Every folder on my harddrive is EMPTY!!! WTF?

Yeah, life's too short. At work if we can't kill it manually in 15 minutes (which I usually can), we grab any personal data, then wipe and reload.

I hear that...

The bug kept reloading itself in the registry after removing the threats while in safe mode. I ran a full system scan, remove the bug, reboot into safe mode and comes up clean. I then reboot into regular mode, run a full system scan with Malwarebytes and the bug is back.....

After the third time and 2 hours, I chose to to a drive wipe and reinstall the OS.

after you let malwarebytes do its thing, make sure you clean out any and all temp files on the PC and then reboot. That has killed every FBI/ransom virus I have seen. I use this:

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files...r-by-oldtimer/